UAN members in Canada
Facts & Stats about UAN Membership
Recently the Urgent Action Network Coordinators set out to learn a bit more about its membership and how it responds to UA appeals. To this end, we sent out a questionnaire at the end of 1999 to our 1400 UA members. (By the end of 2001, our numbers had increased to 2000 members.) Of the 26% or so who responded, the following general trends were noted:
3% of our responding members are 10 to 20 years of age, 31% are aged 20 to 40 years, 41% are 40 to 60, 21% are 60 to 80 years old and 4% are over 80 years of age.
22% of UA responding members live in a rural environment.
The largest % of respondents have been UA members for either 1 to 2 years (23%) or 10 years or more (again, 23%). Most others fall in between these two extremes. However, 11% stated that they didn't know how long they had been members. We suspect that these respondents are amongst our long time writers.
56% of respondents are not members of any other AI group or network whereas 24% are members of a local group and 13% are active participants of an AI network.
A sign of our wired times! 62% receive their appeals via email (by July 2001, UA Coordinators suspected that this figure had crept up to 75%), 30% via post and 8% via fax.
Most respondents are very active, receiving an Urgent Action once a month or once a week (39% and 34% respectively).
With regards to response time, most members respond within 48 hours (37%). 22% respond within a day and another 22% respond within 3 days.
68% always send copies of their letters to the government representative in Canada. 45% always and 43% sometimes copy their letters to other addresses provided.
Only 57% send in replies they receive to Urgent Action Coordinators. (We'd love to get more! Even form letters are important because they alert our Research Department in London to the strength of the reply.)
What's one reason you are involved with Amnesty?
"I'm a former POC (prisoner of conscience) who was "adopted" by Amnesty - it saved my life and the lives of my household in West Africa. This is sufficient for me and my family to spend the rest of our lives on earth in the service of the eradication of human rights violations."
"I experienced human rights violations in World War II - it's a great motivator to be an Amnesty International member."
"Aversion to injustice."
"I am sick of bullies, rapists and murderers."
"Because here in Canada I have freedoms that others don't."
"Outrage."
"Because I care."
"To make the world a better place to live in."
"If you're not part of the solution, then you're probably part of the problem."
"Human rights violations anywhere are a threat to us all. The commission of such acts lowers our collective humanity."
"This is my 'one small step for mankind'."
"It's the old union strategy: 'an injury to one is an injury to all'."
For more information about other specialized action networks, click here.